When I was in high school, a thought shared during a testimony meeting at church made a lasting impression on me. It was that we should shut down a false suggestion before it has a chance to make an impression. The speaker used an analogy of having one’s thought set like a trap that activates instantly when triggered. I have thought about this many times since as a student of Christian Science.

Last December, I woke up during vacation with symptoms of a cold or the flu. I remembered the trap analogy and immediately began dismissing the symptoms as having nothing to do with God, good. Mary Baker Eddy writes in Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, “When the first symptoms of disease appear, dispute the testimony of the material senses with divine Science.”

At the bottom of the same page, she continues, “Rise in the conscious strength of the spirit of Truth to overthrow the plea of mortal mind, alias matter, arrayed against the supremacy of Spirit” (pp. 390–391). Right then, I disputed the symptoms’ appearance of reality and replaced them in my thought with what I know to be true: that my real identity is spiritual, God’s image and likeness, as the Bible tells us. I then went about my day undaunted by what the physical senses were reporting.